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1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1world news China signals ‘new era’ for architecture with ban on supertall skyscrapers and copycat buildingshttps://newsnetdaily.com/world-news-china-signals-new-era-for-architecture-with-ban-on-supertall-skyscrapers-and-copycat-buildings/
Sun, 07 Jun 2020 08:35:06 +0000https://newsnetdaily.com/world-news-china-signals-new-era-for-architecture-with-ban-on-supertall-skyscrapers-and-copycat-buildings/news net daily : Written by Oscar Holland, CNN An end to “copycat” buildings and a ban on skyscrapers taller than 500 meters (1,640 feet) are among the Chinese government’s new guidelines for architects, property developers and urban planners. Outlining what it calls a “new era” for China’s cities, a circular issued by the country’s […]]]>

news net daily :

Written by Oscar Holland, CNN

An end to “copycat” buildings and a ban on skyscrapers taller than 500 meters (1,640 feet) are among the Chinese government’s new guidelines for architects, property developers and urban planners.

Outlining what it calls a “new era” for China’s cities, a circular issued by the country’s housing ministry and the National Development and Reform Commission earlier this year also proposes other sweeping measures to ensure buildings “embody the spirit” of their surroundings and “highlight Chinese characteristics.”

With height restrictions already being implemented in places like Beijing, and a 2016 government directive calling for the end to “oversized, xenocentric, weird” buildings, the guidelines appear to formalize changes that were already underway.

But according to Chinese architecture experts, some of the less eye-catching suggestions — such as an appeal for heritage protection, a credit system for designers and the appointment of chief architects — may signal a subtler evolution in the way China’s cities are planned.

“The document is really not just about height,” said Li Shiqiao, a professor of Asian architecture at the University of Virginia, in a phone interview. “It’s about Chinese culture, the urban context, the spirit of the city and the appearance of modernity.”

“This has been in the academic discussion a lot, but somehow not in a government document until now.”

Cut down to size

Of the 10 completed buildings measuring above 500 meters around the world, half are found in mainland China.

Among them are the planet’s second-tallest skyscraper, the twisting Shanghai Tower at 632 meters (2,073 feet) tall, and Shenzhen’s Ping An Finance Center, which is 599 meters (1,965 feet) from base to tip.

In the last two years, they’ve been joined by Beijing’s Citic Tower and the Tianjin CTF Finance Center, the world’s seventh and ninth tallest buildings respectively. But the tide against soaring skyscrapers has been turning for some time.

The number of new buildings measuring 200 meters (656 feet) or above in China fell by almost 40% last year, according to construction data from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH). In Beijing’s downtown Central Business District, a height restriction was already being applied to new proposals — a cap of just 180 meters (591 feet) according to a 2018 report by property firm Jones Lang LaSalle.

Elsewhere in the country, the Wuhan Greenland Center had its projected height cut from 636 meters (2,087 feet) to under 500 — a decision made in 2018, after construction began, necessitating a significant redesign — with local media citing airspace regulations. The Suzhou Hungnam Center has since had its planned height cut from 729 meters (2,392 feet) to 499 meters (1,637 feet), with upcoming skyscrapers in the cities of Chengdu and Shenyang also “suffering the same fate,” according to state-run tabloid Global Times.

Vessel-shaped ‘supertall’ skyscraper transforms Beijing’s skyline

Fei Chen, a senior architecture professor at the UK’s Liverpool University, described the 500-meter limit as “quite arbitrary,” adding that skyscrapers measuring 499 meters are “still very, very tall buildings.” But the new document confirms growing intolerance for buildings that are “out of scale or out of context,” she said.

Chen also pointed to official concern around the “reckless” use of tall buildings, whereby expensive and unprofitable towers are used by real estate firms to brand their developments — or by local governments to put their cities on the map.

“(The guidelines) respond to the identity crisis that we’ve all noticed since the 1980s, when cities started to borrow standards and building types from international contexts,” she said in a phone interview. “And since the 1990s, cities have been promoted as being competitive in the market through the construction of landmarks and large public buildings.”

As such, the new restrictions are as much about economics as design. Above a certain height, the cost of constructing skyscrapers increases exponentially with each additional floor. China’s skylines are now littered with unfinished towers as economic growth slows and developers face a squeeze on credit.

According to CTBUH data, around 70 Chinese buildings that were meant to stand above 200 meters are currently “on hold,” having already started construction. Three of them were expected to measure over 500 meters, including Tianjin’s soaring Goldin Finance 117, which broke ground over a decade ago. Wuhan’s aforementioned Greenland Center has stood unfinished and largely untouched since 2017, despite having its planned height reduced.

In Li’s view, the government’s new measures epitomize a “new paradigm” for Chinese cities — one less reliant on marketable skyscrapers and speculative financing. To illustrate the shift, he compares Shanghai’s Pudong district, the soaring financial quarter that rose from almost nothing in the last two decades, to Xiongan, a brand new city being built 100 kilometers southwest of Beijing. Unlike Pudong, the new 2.5-million person satellite city will be relatively low-rise, with its property market subjected to tight state controls.

“If you take Pudong as the paradigm for Chinese urbanization from 2000 to today, then you look at Xiongan — which is not dominated by real estate speculation or iconic buildings — as the new paradigm … then that’s quite an amazing change we’re witnessing.”

A new framework

Yet Li maintains that the 500-meter height restriction is, from an academic standpoint, “probably the least interesting” part of the new government guidelines.

Elsewhere, the circular contains a range of other measures, including the prohibition of “plagiarism, imitation and copycat behavior.” China’s very own Eiffel Tower and a London-inspired Thames Town outside Shanghai are two of the more extreme — and ridiculed — examples of how imitation architecture thrived in the 2000s.

A replica of the Eiffel Tower in Tianducheng, a luxury real estate development in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. Credit: JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images

This official shift, again, may simply reflect the changing design culture in China. But an explicit ban on plagiarism could nonetheless prove useful in a country where the “degree of quality is so diverse,” Chen said.

“There’s already an acknowledgment in the architecture industry that (copying) is not welcome,” she said. “But China is huge, and some cities are doing better than others.

“In east-coast cities, or more developed areas, architects have better design skills, so they produce better buildings. But in inland cities you still see buildings that copy others’ styles or architectural languages, and that doesn’t result in very good design.”

The government document also proposes a credit system — and, conversely, a blacklist — for architects, to encourage compliance with planning laws and regulations. It warns against demolishing historical buildings, traditional architecture or even old trees to make way for new developments, a move in keeping with the growing emphasis placed on heritage preservation in China. (Two Shanghai art museums, created from disused industrial oil tanks and an old power station, are among the recent high-profile renovation projects in a country once known for indiscriminately razing old structures).

But one of the government’s new suggestions proposes something entirely new in China: chief architects for each city.

Moscow and Barcelona are among cities that already appoint an individual to approve or veto new proposals. Li welcomed the idea as a way to ensure designs fit the overall urban context.

“The hesitation is whether ensuring uniformity means that a city becomes predictable and uninteresting, or whether you actually sustain some degree of creativity,” he added. “But we have a new generation (of Chinese designers) that is great at both maintaining the urban fabric and creating very interesting architecture. The key is instituting a system that guarantees that process.”

How — or even whether — the government’s more exploratory suggestions come to fruition remains to be seen. The new guidelines provide a broad framework for cities, but finer details must be resolved at a local level, said Chen, whose research focuses on urban governance in China.

Characterizing the circular as a series of red lines not to be crossed (more “don’ts” than “dos”), she also suggested that work is still required to positively articulate what constitutes good design.

“There are policies and documents talking about what you shouldn’t do… which is a good thing, but they’ve never said what you should do,” she explained. “Architects and urban designers may benefit from quite specific guidance on what good design is.

“But this needs to be related to the local context, so I wouldn’t expect the national government to produce guidance like this. What works in one context may not work in another.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Massive protests against police brutality nationwide capped a week that began in chaos but ended with largely peaceful expressions that organizers hope will sustain their movement.

Saturday’s marches featured few reports of problems in scenes that were more often festive than tense. Authorities were not quick to release crowd size estimates, but it was clear tens of thousands of people — and perhaps hundreds of thousands — turned out nationally.

Wearing masks and urging fundamental change, protesters gathered in dozens of places from coast to coast while mourners in North Carolina waited for hours to glimpse the golden coffin carrying the body of native son George Floyd, the black man whose death at the hands of Minneapolis police has galvanized the expanding movement.

Collectively, it was perhaps the largest one-day mobilization since Floyd died May 25 and came as many cities lifted curfews imposed following initial spasms of arson, assaults and smash-and-grab raids on businesses. Authorities have softened restrictions as the number of arrests plummeted.

Demonstrations also reached four other continents, ending in clashes in London and Marseille, France. In the U.S., Seattle police used flash bang devices and pepper spray to disperse protesters hurling rocks, bottles and what authorities said were “improvised explosives” that had injured officers, just a day after city leaders temporarily banned one kind of tear gas. Around midnight in Portland, a firework was thrown over the fence at the Justice Center, injuring a Multnomah County deputy, Portland police Lt. Tina Jones said. Smith said police had declare an unlawful assembly and were making arrests.

The largest U.S. demonstration appeared to be in Washington, where protesters flooded streets closed to traffic. On a hot, humid day, they gathered at the Capitol, on the National Mall and in neighborhoods. Some turned intersections into dance floors. Tents offered snacks and water.

Pamela Reynolds said she came seeking greater police accountability.

“The laws are protecting them,” said the 37-year-old African American teacher. The changes she wants include a federal ban on police chokeholds and a requirement that officers wear body cameras.

At the White House, which was fortified with new fencing and extra security measures, chants and cheers were heard in waves. President Donald Trump, who has urged authorities to crack down on unrest, downplayed the demonstration, tweeting: “Much smaller crowd in D.C. than anticipated.”

Elsewhere, the backdrops included some of the nation’s most famous landmarks. Peaceful marchers mingled with motorists as they crossed the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Cars had been cleared from the Brooklyn Bridge as protesters streamed into Manhattan on a day that New York police relaxed enforcement of a curfew that has led to confrontations. They walked the boulevards of Hollywood and a Nashville, Tennessee, street famous for country music-themed bars and restaurants.

Many protesters wore masks — a reminder of the danger that the protests could exacerbate the spread of the coronavirus.

Roderick Sweeney, who is black, said the large turnout of white protesters waving signs that said “Black Lives Matter” in San Francisco sent a powerful message.

“We’ve had discussions in our family and among friends that nothing is going to change until our white brothers and sisters voice their opinion,” said Sweeney, 49.

A large crowd of Seattle medical workers, many in lab coats and scrubs, marched to City Hall, holding signs reading, “Police violence and racism are a public health emergency” and “Nurses kneel with you, not on you” — a reference to how a white officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for several minutes.

Atop a parking garage in downtown Atlanta, a group of black college band alumni serenaded protesters with a tuba-heavy mix of tunes. Standing within earshot, business owner Leah Aforkor Quaye said it was her first time hitting the streets.

“This makes people so uncomfortable, but the only way things are happening is if we make people uncomfortable,” said Quaye, who is black.

In Raeford, North Carolina, a town near Floyd’s birthplace, people lined up outside a Free Will Baptist church, waiting to enter in small groups. At a private memorial service, mourners sang along with a choir. A large photo of Floyd and a portrait of him adorned with an angel’s wings and halo were displayed at the front of the chapel.

“It could have been me. It could have been my brother, my father, any of my friends who are black,” said Erik Carlos of nearby Fayetteville. “It made me feel very vulnerable at first.”

Floyd’s body will go to Houston, where he lived before Minneapolis, for another memorial in the coming days.

Protesters and their supporters in public office say they’re determined to turn the outpouring into change, notably overhauling policing policies. Many marchers urged officials to “defund the police.”

Congressional Democrats are preparing a sweeping package of police reforms, which is expected to include changes to immunity provisions and creating a database of use-of-force incidents. Revamped training requirements are planned, too — among them, a ban on chokeholds.

The prospects of reforms clearing a divided Congress are unclear.

Back in North Carolina, the Rev. Christopher Stackhouse recounted the circumstances of Floyd’s death for the congregation.

“It took 8 minutes and 46 seconds for him to die,” Stackhouse said at the memorial service. “But it took 401 years to put the system in place so nothing would happen.”

Pritchard reported from Los Angeles and Foreman from Raeford, North Carolina. Associated Press staff from around the world contributed to this report, including Jeff Chiu in San Francisco; Jill Colvin in Washington; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio; Bobby Caina Calvan in Tallahassee, Florida; John Leicester in Paris; and David Crary and Brian Mahoney in New York.

Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

]]>Uber driver is suspended for shaming racist passengers who abused him and then spat on his carhttps://newsnetdaily.com/uber-driver-is-suspended-for-shaming-racist-passengers-who-abused-him-and-then-spat-on-his-car/
Sun, 07 Jun 2020 08:28:18 +0000https://newsnetdaily.com/uber-driver-is-suspended-for-shaming-racist-passengers-who-abused-him-and-then-spat-on-his-car/dailymail

‘You’re a full on dirty Arab’: Disgusting moment passengers racially abuse an Uber driver and spit on his car – but HE is suspended from the ride share service

Uber driver was suspended for publicly shaming passengers who abused him

George Michael Gilto was working as a driver in Cronulla, in Sydney’s south

Two men got in the car with a case of beer and he asked them to put it in the boot

When they refused he cancelled the trip and asked them to call someone else

One of the men calls him a ‘scumbag’ but another calls him a ‘dirty Arab’

They then spit on the car before police are called and issue them with $550 fines

Amanda Nunes cemented her status as an all-time great of the sport with a display of complete dominance in her unanimous decision win over Canadian contender Felicia Spencer at UFC 250 in Las Vegas.

Nunes’ victory at the behind-closed-doors event at the UFC Apex made history as she became the first simultaneous two-weight champion to register successful defences of both titles.

The Florida-based Brazilian totally dominated every facet of the fight as she connected with her punches almost at will, while dominating the grappling exchanges on the mat, en route to a landslide victory on the scorecards after five one-sided rounds.

The judges scored the contest 50-44, 50-44, 50-45.

“When she connected the first punch on me, I knew she would never knock me out,” said Nunes after her victory.

“This fight, I wanted to go five rounds. I know if I had time I would finish her, but it’s important for me to go five rounds. I’m tired of hearing, ‘Amanda cannot go five rounds’. Stop that, everybody. I went five rounds with the toughest girl in the division and I’m not tired.”

Nunes captured the UFC’s women’s 145-pound featherweight title in December 2018 with a one-round demolition of compatriot Cristiane ‘Cyborg’ Justino at UFC 238. After capturing her second UFC title, Nunes then returned to bantamweight and registered her fourth and fifth defences of her 135-pound title.

At UFC 250, Nunes’ title defence at featherweight set a new benchmark for UFC champions as she became the first simultaneous two-weight champion to defend both belts as a double champion. Former simultaneous two-weight champions Daniel Cormier and Henry Cejudo both successfully defended their two titles, but had relinquished one before defending the other.

Nunes’ victory further cemented her reputation as the greatest female fighter in UFC history.

The 32-year-old from Bahia owns first-round wins over every women’s bantamweight and featherweight champion in UFC history, plus successful title defences in both weight classes as an active champion. The biggest challenge now is for the UFC’s matchmakers, who have to find the next competitive challenge for arguably the most dominant champion on the UFC roster.

Sterling and Garbrandt deliver statements at bantamweight

The main card also saw two of the world’s top bantamweights score eye-catching victories, as 135-pound contender Aljamain Sterling and former champion Cody Garbrandt both registered impressive stoppage wins.

Number two-ranked Sterling finished rising contender Cory Sandhagen via first-round submission, while world number nine Garbrandt spectacularly knocked out Brazilian contender Raphael Assuncao in the last second of the second round as the two 135-pound contenders both staked a claim for a title shot.

The UFC’s bantamweight title was recently vacated by Henry Cejudo, who retired in the octagon after his victory at UFC 249. The UFC is looking to book a fight between Russian contender Petr Yan and former featherweight champion Jose Aldo for the vacant belt later this summer.

Now Sterling and Garbrandt have put themselves firmly in contention for the first shot at the winner of that fight, with Garbrandt’s win particularly sweet for the former champion, who ended a run of three successive stoppage defeats with a spectacular knockout of his own as he returned to winning ways for the first time since December 2016.

“I’ve been through every emotion in life, in my career – ups and downs,” he said after his victory.

“What I held onto was fighting. I was blessed with a beautiful wife, a beautiful son and the dream in my heart to pursue this and pick myself up time and time again after getting knocked out and embarrassed to keep that dream alive in my heart.

“I’m just forever thankful that I was able to keep that passion and that drive through it all. I might have bent, but I never broke.”

Cody Garbrandt celebrates after his knockout victory over Raphael Assuncao

Hao Haidong, 50, was a household name among millions of soccer fans in China in the 1990s and 2000s, and briefly played for English club Sheffield United, but in recent years had been relatively low profile. On Thursday, however, he made a surprise appearance in two videos on the YouTube channel of Guo Wengui, an exiled Chinese tycoon and fierce critic of the Chinese government.

In the first video, Hao read out in Chinese a manifesto of the “Federal State of New China,” a government proposed by Guo as an alternative to the Chinese Communist regime.

“The Communist Party’s totalitarian rule in China has caused horrific atrocities against humanity,” he said, denouncing the party as a “terrorist organization” that has “trampled over democracy, violated the rule of law and dishonored lawful agreements.”

He also accused Beijing of violating its promise to Hong Kong to keep the “one country, two systems” principle unchanged for 50 years, and “brutally cracking down on Hong Kongers defending democracy and freedoms.”

It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for a successful Chinese sports star to unleash such a blistering public denunciation of the Communist Party and openly call for its downfall. Dissidents who publicly criticize the party or demand democratic reforms often face lengthy prison sentences.

Hao has been outspoken on social and sports issues, but had not directly challenged the Communist Party until Thursday.

YouTube is banned in China, but news of Hao’s extraordinary public comments were fast spreading on Chinese social media by Thursday afternoon, catching many by surprise. His account on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, appears to have since been deleted.

Sensitive anniversary

It was unclear from the videos where Hao was speaking from, but they were released on a politically sensitive date on the Chinese calendar. June 4 was the 31st anniversary of China’s bloody military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters around Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989.

Hao’s second video featured a 53-minute interview with him and his wife Ye Zhaoying, a former badminton champion.

“The most fundamental reason that I spoke out today against the (Chinese Communist) system is that I think the Chinese people and China’s future should no longer be trampled upon by it,” he said in the interview.

“I think the Chinese Communist Party should be kicked out of humanity. The ghost of Communism should no longer be allowed to drift in this world. This is what I’ve concluded after 50 years of living.”

When asked if he was worried about retaliations for speaking out, Hao said he and his wife were prepared for the attacks and pressure to come. “Today, we’ve made the biggest and most correct decision in our lives,” he said.

Hao was a star on the Chinese national soccer team when it made its only World Cup appearance in 2002. Having retired for more than a decade, the former striker still holds the record as China’s all-time top scorer for the national team and in the Chinese league.

In the videos, Hao did not reveal how he had got in touch with Guo, a Chinese property tycoon-turned-dissident who lives in exile in New York. Since fleeing China in 2014 amid a graft probe by Chinese authorities, Guo has frequently leveled accusations of corruption against Chinese leaders on social media and in livestreams on YouTube.

Guo is known to have close ties with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. In another video released on Guo’s YouTube channel Thursday, Bannon read out an English version of the “Federal State of New China” from a boat, with Guo by his side.

]]>world news The Mormon church’s century-long mission to crack Chinahttps://newsnetdaily.com/world-news-the-mormon-churchs-century-long-mission-to-crack-china-3/
Sun, 07 Jun 2020 08:15:06 +0000https://newsnetdaily.com/world-news-the-mormon-churchs-century-long-mission-to-crack-china-3/news net daily : There are only five state-sanctioned religious associations in China, all under the tight control of the Communist Party. Others walk a delicate legal tightrope, with the threat of a crackdown always hanging over their heads. While the government tolerates foreigners practicing their religion and attending services together, it takes a hard […]]]>

news net daily :

There are only five state-sanctioned religious associations in China, all under the tight control of the Communist Party. Others walk a delicate legal tightrope, with the threat of a crackdown always hanging over their heads. While the government tolerates foreigners practicing their religion and attending services together, it takes a hard line against anything approaching proselytising or missionary work, a prohibition the Mormon Church takes seriously.

“We have to ask to see if they have a foreign passport to attend,” said Jason, a lifelong member of the Church who worked in Shanghai for almost a decade until relocating back to the United State in 2018. “I have frequently been this person watching the doors and on many occasions I have sadly had to turn away Chinese citizens who wished to worship with us.”

And that is during the good times. In recent years, the Chinese government has increased its regulation of religious worship, launched crackdowns against underground churches and instituted new restrictions on those faiths which operate in the grey area of only catering to foreigners.

So the Church’s announcement on April 5, that it plans to open a temple in Shanghai, the first ever in mainland China, was seen by some as a bold decision.

The Church claims it won’t change anything, but the idea that a US church with expansion in its DNA could open an official temple in China is likely to be controversial — and may not be allowed by Beijing. Already, authorities in Shanghai have suggested that the announcement was made without their prior approval, even as experts said the Church would likely never have revealed the plans without a clear go ahead.

“I couldn’t have imagined that we would ever have a temple in Shanghai at this time,” he said. “Immediately, my WeChat started lighting up as we were all expressing joy and excitement with our China friends.”

Jason is a pseudonym. Like several other current members of the Church interviewed for this story, he requested anonymity to speak about its functioning in China without the permission of Church leadership.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints declined multiple requests for an interview for this story, referring CNN to a website about its operations in China and President Russell Nelson’s statement on April 5.

In the beginning

Founded in upstate New York by Joseph Smith in 1830, it took the Mormon Church some 117 years to grow from six initial members to its first million. Today, it claims more than 16.5 million members globally, with most outside the US.

While the true size of the church is debated (some say they include members who are no longer active) one thing is clear: the massive growth of the Church has been achieved through the work of thousands of missionaries.

Smith said he received a revelation in February 1831, in which God told his followers to “go forth in my name, every one of you” and “build up my church in every region.”

That is how the Church arrived in China over a century and a half ago.

Its start in the country, however, was less than auspicious. In 1853, its then-leader Brigham Young dispatched three missionaries to British-controlled Hong Kong, then a common staging ground for those seeking to spread the gospel in China.

When they arrived, however, they realized that China was in the midst of a bloody civil war, making travel outside of Hong Kong exceptionally dangerous. Their reception in the city was not much better, as the English-language press ran lurid articles about the Mormon faith and accused the faith of blasphemy. Their funds running out, they struggled even to find a Chinese teacher.

“Our staying here to learn the Chinese language without one friend or one possible recourse to us appears totally impractable (sic),” the missionaries wrote in a letter to church leaders as, less than two months after they had arrived in Asia, they boarded a ship bound for California, historian Stephen Prince recounts in his biography of one of the missionaries, Hosea Stout.

It was not until 1949 that the Church established a permanent presence in Hong Kong, with the intention again of using the city to get a foothold into China.

“Nearly one billion of our Father’s children live in China,” then-President Spencer Kimball said in 1978. “If we could only make a small beginning in every nation, soon the converts among each kindred and tongue could step forth as lights to their own people.”

Beginning in 1980, Church leadership began reaching out to the Chinese authorities to try to get permission to operate in the country, and in 1986, small church branches — meeting houses — were organized in Beijing and Xi’an, though only those holding foreign passports were permitted to attend. According to the Church, today there are around 10 meeting houses across mainland China. By comparison, there are around the same number in Hong Kong alone, and more than 50 meeting houses in self-governed Taiwan, where the Church claims around 61,000 members.

Despite this apparent lack of progress, Church leaders say they have built a strong relationship with the Chinese authorities, and in 2010 they announced moves to “regularize” their activities in the country.

“The Church deeply appreciates the courtesy of the Chinese leadership in opening up a way to better define how the Church and its members can proceed with daily activities, all in harmony with Chinese law,” spokesman Michael Otterson said at the time. “They have become thoroughly familiar with us through numerous contacts, and they have seen how we and our members operate in China. They know that we are people of our word when it comes to respecting Chinese law and cultural expectations.”

Currently, two types of Mormon worship are permitted in China: services for foreign nationals, and services for Chinese nationals who converted while overseas. The two are kept separate, and the Church is careful to avoid any sign of seeking to expand its Chinese membership within the country. Unlike with other countries in which it operates, however, the church does not provide membership figures for China.

Building trust

The Chinese Communist Party has always had an uneasy relationship with religion. The state is officially atheist, and the tens of millions of Party members are barred from holding religious beliefs.

Despite a constitutional commitment to religious freedom, only a handful of faiths are permitted to operate, each under umbrella organizations with strong links to the Communist Party.

Two are considered domestic faiths — Buddhism and Taoism — while the others are foreign religions, with varying historical pedigrees in the country, Islam, Protestantism and Catholicism, though Chinese Catholic organizations operate separately to Rome.

Other religions fall into a grey area: the State Council says it is “open” to foreign organizations — but only if they respect China’s sovereignty and principle of religious self-administration.

In practice, this means religious bodies’ first loyalty must be to the Communist Party, not a foreign Church leadership. This point has caused a long-standing rift with the Vatican since the establishment of the People’s Republic, and Chinese Catholics operate separately to the global church, though some progress has been made towards rapprochement in recent years.

Despite this, religious practice is on the rise. But alongside this growth in belief has come increased suspicion of “foreign” religions, particularly Islam and Christianity (though both have long-histories in China). Muslims in the far-western region of Xinjiang have had their religious practices strictly curtailed, while underground Christian churches, once broadly tolerated, have been cracked down upon.

Indeed, around the time Nelson was making the announcement of the new temple, International Christian Concern, a US-based advocacy group, said that believers holding Easter services online were raided by the authorities. Local police could not be reached for comment, the Early Rain Covenant Church which organized the service is considered an “underground,” or unlicensed, operation and has previously been ordered to cease activities, according to Human Rights Watch.

“The Chinese government is very suspicious of religion as a vehicle for potential political opposition,” said William Nee, a Hong Kong-based researcher for Amnesty International.

Pierre Vendassi, an expert on Christianity in China, said that the government “is mainly trying to take back the control over religious activities, and uses full force to do so, after a period of time when people could almost freely opt for unregistered, unmonitored religious activities, without facing any consequences, most of the time.”

“Now the message is clear: either accept state control, monitoring and restrictions, or face state hostility,” he said. “For the Christian activities, the purpose is to get house churches and Catholic underground church back under control.”

As far as non-official faiths go, the Mormon Church is perhaps the gold standard for such a group in China. Current and former members, as well as outside observers, agreed that the Church is scrupulous about following Chinese law and avoiding anything that could be seen as proselytization.

Nee contrasted this with “other forms of Protestant Christianity or evangelical traditions coming out of the US, who have a much more aggressive or underground strategy for spreading the faith.”

Sarah, a Mormon who worked as a university professor for several years in China, said she “did not tell people what church I belonged to or even if I belonged to a church.”

“Some friends would ask me if I was Christian. I would say yes (but) we do not talk about it in China,” she said. “They would nod and agree. That is as far as the conversation would go.”

Marcelo Gameiro, a Church member living in Shanghai, said that he does not talk about the church “because it is against the law.”

“But I don’t hide (that) I am a member of the church,” he added. “When I was in Huzhou, I used to go to the Hangzhou branch, it took me three hours to get there, and people started to notice I was going somewhere every Sunday dressed in a tie, so I did tell them where I was going with no problem, I just did not preach the gospel to anyone.”

Sarah said she would “occasionally see Christian religious groups that would come in and rather openly flout the rules of China.” American students would get scholarships in China and then try and convert their classmates.

“Several times I talked to them about it, I asked is this the right thing to do, are you making a good example,” she said. “I heard from Chinese people who got rather angry because people would come from other countries and give away Bibles and start conversations about religion, and they would say we are not allowed to talk about this in China.”

Playing the long game

John Wakefield, a now ex-Mormon who came to Hong Kong as a missionary in the 1980s and still lives in the city, said a big part of the Mormon religion is “we’re going to convert the whole world” and that it’s the fastest growing church in the world. “For them, numbers are really important,” he said.

Another former Mormon, Bryce Bushman, who lived in China for almost four years, where he worked as an urban planner and designer, said that: “Mormon doctrine states that the LDS Church will eventually cover the whole Earth.”

“It’s considered a prophecy, something that is definitely going to happen at some point in the future,” he said. “This gives both the church organization and the members of the church a kind of patient confidence that eventually every nation on earth will allow Mormon missionaries to proselyte and establish church congregations.”

Mormon doctrine also permits “baptisms for the dead,” allowing for the potential salvation of those already deceased, who can then “choose to accept or reject what has been done in their behalf.” This alleviates somewhat the need to spread the word of Jesus to people before they die, has been stated as a motivation for some evangelical missionaries to take great risks in the name of saving souls.

This patience allows the Church to play the long game in China, confident that one day it will be able to bring its message to the country’s vast population.

Josh Steimle, a practicing Mormon who lived in the Chinese city of Shenzhen for two years, said it “would have been so easy to pass along the URL to a Church website to someone who was curious, or give them a Book of Mormon, or a pamphlet about the Church.”

“It was very difficult because we’re a Church that believes in sharing what we believe, and we’re always being encouraged to be good missionaries, and then to move to China and be told to not say a word about what we believe seems to be contrary to everything we’ve been taught,” he added. “But it’s all about the long term vs. the short term. If we shared our beliefs in violation of Chinese law, a few people might join our Church and then the Church would be shut down and kicked out of the country.”

Temple doctrine

On paper, a temple should not be too much for the Chinese authorities to stomach.

In its description of the proposed temple in Shanghai, the Church is clear that this does not represent a climactic shift, nor will the Chinese temple be anything like the grand white stone buildings that dot many American cities.

“It would be modest in appearance. It would fit and be consistent with local custom and environment as a place of peace, tranquility, and dignity,” the Church said of the proposed temple, which it said is intended to serve as a replacement for the Hong Kong building, which is currently closed for “long-planned maintenance and renovation.”

It said that entry will be limited to Chinese members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — those who have converted overseas and returned to China — adding that this “does not represent a change in the legal status” or the ability of missionaries to operate in China.

Unlike a regular church, Mormon temples are not open to non-members, and even those within the Church must be considered in good standing and receive a “recommend” from a Church official in order to enter.

While the Church appears to be downplaying the significance of a potential temple, all current and former members interviewed by CNN agreed that it would be a major achievement.

Steimle said that it was “difficult to express how big of a deal this is for me, personally, other members of the Church who have ties to China, and really to the entire Church membership worldwide. It’s going to be a very small temple, but it’s a huge thing for the Church.”

Temples are where the most important and sacred Mormon ceremonies are carried out, including baptisms and “celestial marriages.”

If established, the temple would not be the first active place of worship in Shanghai for an unofficial religion. In recent years, limited services have been held at the Ohel Rachel Synagogue, a historic building that predates the establishment of the Communist state. Most Jews in China however continue to practice behind closed doors, in arrangements similar to Mormon meeting houses.

Whether Mormons in China will be able to get nearer to that presence remains to be seen. In a statement issued two days after the Church’s announcement, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Ethnic and Religious Affairs said that “according to the relevant laws and regulations of China, foreigners are not allowed to set up religious organizations or venues for religious activities in China.”

The bureau denied any knowledge of plans for a temple in Shanghai, saying they were the “wishful thinking of the Mormon Church in the United States.”

When CNN asked the Church about the current status of the project, a spokesman would only provide a link to the Church’s website detailing plans for the temple and how it would operate. Church representatives would neither confirm nor deny the veracity of the original statement announcing the temple. However, since reporting on this story began, reference to the Shanghai temple has been removed from the Church’s website, though it is still available on an archived version of the page.

Vendassi, the expert on religion in China, said that despite this apparent denial by the authorities, a temple may still end up opening at some point in the near future.

“If an LDS temple has been announced in Shanghai, I think it means they probably had a ‘go’ from Chinese officials to do so,” Vendassi said. “Even if the government says it is a unilateral statement — they actually have no interest in making a bilateral statement, because that would send a message of religious openness.”

Nee, the Amnesty researcher, said that while there was no reason on paper for the Chinese authorities to object to a temple, he doubted whether officials “would be willing to understand the nuances of religions and their theologies” in order to permit such an institution.

As a uniquely American religion, Mormonism’s hopes in China may also be hurt by worsening relations between Washington and Beijing. In the same month the Shanghai temple was announced, Senator Mitt Romney said the coronavirus pandemic had exposed China’s “grand strategy for economic, military and geopolitical domination.”

Romney is by no means alone in criticizing Beijing, but as the country’s highest-ranking elected Mormon, his words may carry more weight with China’s leaders when they are considering the Church’s position there.

China change

If the Mormon Church does have to exercise more patience before they open a temple in mainland China, what are a few more years or decades after a century and a half?

Responding to a question of when China would be open to missionaries in 1991,Elder Dallin Oaks — a senior Church leader — said that “I state my belief that China is already ‘open’ — it is we who are closed … We must understand their way of thinking … observe their laws, and follow their example of patience.”

Quoting Mormon scripture, Oaks added that God “will bring His purposes to pass in that great nation ‘in his own time, and in his own way, and according to his own will’.”

Mormons who lived in China spoke of the country with great fondness, despite the restrictions placed on how they worshipped there. Both Jason and Sarah keep in contact with Chinese friends over WeChat, and hope to visit again in future.

Sarah saw many parallels between China and the Mormon people, pointing in particular to the importance of venerating ancestors in Chinese culture.

“My ancestors are special to me,” she said. “Many of them joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while our first leader, Joseph Smith, was a prophet. Like the people of China who went on the (Long March), my people also traveled across a continent in search of their dream.”

Two of Jason’s four children were born while the family was living in Shanghai, and the kids went to local Chinese schools. Jason and his wife made a concerted effort to integrate into Chinese life more than many other expats around them, doing “many things that few foreigners experience in China.”

“We didn’t speak any Chinese when we came but we did when we left,” he said. This brought him closer both to locals and to other members of the foreign Mormon community who weren’t as comfortable operating in China.

“I can’t possibly begin to count the number of people we had over for dinners, the people we took shopping because everything the supermarket was unfamiliar, how many people we helped to simply get a Chinese phone number and register for WeChat, both for members of our Church and those who were not.”

Both were optimistic about the future of the Church in China, but emphasized the need for patience, a view shared by Steimle.

“Great progress usually doesn’t happen in a straight line,” he said. “Although there have been crackdowns on religion in China, perhaps the obedience of our members and the trust and friendship our Church leadership has built up over the years by working openly with the Chinese government will help open doors.”

There are only five state-sanctioned religious associations in China, all under the tight control of the Communist Party. Others walk a delicate legal tightrope, with the threat of a crackdown always hanging over their heads. While the government tolerates foreigners practicing their religion and attending services together, it takes a hard line against anything approaching proselytising or missionary work, a prohibition the Mormon Church takes seriously.

“We have to ask to see if they have a foreign passport to attend,” said Jason, a lifelong member of the Church who worked in Shanghai for almost a decade until relocating back to the United State in 2018. “I have frequently been this person watching the doors and on many occasions I have sadly had to turn away Chinese citizens who wished to worship with us.”

And that is during the good times. In recent years, the Chinese government has increased its regulation of religious worship, launched crackdowns against underground churches and instituted new restrictions on those faiths which operate in the grey area of only catering to foreigners.

So the Church’s announcement on April 5, that it plans to open a temple in Shanghai, the first ever in mainland China, was seen by some as a bold decision.

The Church claims it won’t change anything, but the idea that a US church with expansion in its DNA could open an official temple in China is likely to be controversial — and may not be allowed by Beijing. Already, authorities in Shanghai have suggested that the announcement was made without their prior approval, even as experts said the Church would likely never have revealed the plans without a clear go ahead.

“I couldn’t have imagined that we would ever have a temple in Shanghai at this time,” he said. “Immediately, my WeChat started lighting up as we were all expressing joy and excitement with our China friends.”

Jason is a pseudonym. Like several other current members of the Church interviewed for this story, he requested anonymity to speak about its functioning in China without the permission of Church leadership.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints declined multiple requests for an interview for this story, referring CNN to a website about its operations in China and President Russell Nelson’s statement on April 5.

In the beginning

Founded in upstate New York by Joseph Smith in 1830, it took the Mormon Church some 117 years to grow from six initial members to its first million. Today, it claims more than 16.5 million members globally, with most outside the US.

While the true size of the church is debated (some say they include members who are no longer active) one thing is clear: the massive growth of the Church has been achieved through the work of thousands of missionaries.

Smith said he received a revelation in February 1831, in which God told his followers to “go forth in my name, every one of you” and “build up my church in every region.”

That is how the Church arrived in China over a century and a half ago.

Its start in the country, however, was less than auspicious. In 1853, its then-leader Brigham Young dispatched three missionaries to British-controlled Hong Kong, then a common staging ground for those seeking to spread the gospel in China.

When they arrived, however, they realized that China was in the midst of a bloody civil war, making travel outside of Hong Kong exceptionally dangerous. Their reception in the city was not much better, as the English-language press ran lurid articles about the Mormon faith and accused the faith of blasphemy. Their funds running out, they struggled even to find a Chinese teacher.

“Our staying here to learn the Chinese language without one friend or one possible recourse to us appears totally impractable (sic),” the missionaries wrote in a letter to church leaders as, less than two months after they had arrived in Asia, they boarded a ship bound for California, historian Stephen Prince recounts in his biography of one of the missionaries, Hosea Stout.

It was not until 1949 that the Church established a permanent presence in Hong Kong, with the intention again of using the city to get a foothold into China.

“Nearly one billion of our Father’s children live in China,” then-President Spencer Kimball said in 1978. “If we could only make a small beginning in every nation, soon the converts among each kindred and tongue could step forth as lights to their own people.”

Beginning in 1980, Church leadership began reaching out to the Chinese authorities to try to get permission to operate in the country, and in 1986, small church branches — meeting houses — were organized in Beijing and Xi’an, though only those holding foreign passports were permitted to attend. According to the Church, today there are around 10 meeting houses across mainland China. By comparison, there are around the same number in Hong Kong alone, and more than 50 meeting houses in self-governed Taiwan, where the Church claims around 61,000 members.

Despite this apparent lack of progress, Church leaders say they have built a strong relationship with the Chinese authorities, and in 2010 they announced moves to “regularize” their activities in the country.

“The Church deeply appreciates the courtesy of the Chinese leadership in opening up a way to better define how the Church and its members can proceed with daily activities, all in harmony with Chinese law,” spokesman Michael Otterson said at the time. “They have become thoroughly familiar with us through numerous contacts, and they have seen how we and our members operate in China. They know that we are people of our word when it comes to respecting Chinese law and cultural expectations.”

Currently, two types of Mormon worship are permitted in China: services for foreign nationals, and services for Chinese nationals who converted while overseas. The two are kept separate, and the Church is careful to avoid any sign of seeking to expand its Chinese membership within the country. Unlike with other countries in which it operates, however, the church does not provide membership figures for China.

Building trust

The Chinese Communist Party has always had an uneasy relationship with religion. The state is officially atheist, and the tens of millions of Party members are barred from holding religious beliefs.

Despite a constitutional commitment to religious freedom, only a handful of faiths are permitted to operate, each under umbrella organizations with strong links to the Communist Party.

Two are considered domestic faiths — Buddhism and Taoism — while the others are foreign religions, with varying historical pedigrees in the country, Islam, Protestantism and Catholicism, though Chinese Catholic organizations operate separately to Rome.

Other religions fall into a grey area: the State Council says it is “open” to foreign organizations — but only if they respect China’s sovereignty and principle of religious self-administration.

In practice, this means religious bodies’ first loyalty must be to the Communist Party, not a foreign Church leadership. This point has caused a long-standing rift with the Vatican since the establishment of the People’s Republic, and Chinese Catholics operate separately to the global church, though some progress has been made towards rapprochement in recent years.

Despite this, religious practice is on the rise. But alongside this growth in belief has come increased suspicion of “foreign” religions, particularly Islam and Christianity (though both have long-histories in China). Muslims in the far-western region of Xinjiang have had their religious practices strictly curtailed, while underground Christian churches, once broadly tolerated, have been cracked down upon.

Indeed, around the time Nelson was making the announcement of the new temple, International Christian Concern, a US-based advocacy group, said that believers holding Easter services online were raided by the authorities. Local police could not be reached for comment, the Early Rain Covenant Church which organized the service is considered an “underground,” or unlicensed, operation and has previously been ordered to cease activities, according to Human Rights Watch.

“The Chinese government is very suspicious of religion as a vehicle for potential political opposition,” said William Nee, a Hong Kong-based researcher for Amnesty International.

Pierre Vendassi, an expert on Christianity in China, said that the government “is mainly trying to take back the control over religious activities, and uses full force to do so, after a period of time when people could almost freely opt for unregistered, unmonitored religious activities, without facing any consequences, most of the time.”

“Now the message is clear: either accept state control, monitoring and restrictions, or face state hostility,” he said. “For the Christian activities, the purpose is to get house churches and Catholic underground church back under control.”

As far as non-official faiths go, the Mormon Church is perhaps the gold standard for such a group in China. Current and former members, as well as outside observers, agreed that the Church is scrupulous about following Chinese law and avoiding anything that could be seen as proselytization.

Nee contrasted this with “other forms of Protestant Christianity or evangelical traditions coming out of the US, who have a much more aggressive or underground strategy for spreading the faith.”

Sarah, a Mormon who worked as a university professor for several years in China, said she “did not tell people what church I belonged to or even if I belonged to a church.”

“Some friends would ask me if I was Christian. I would say yes (but) we do not talk about it in China,” she said. “They would nod and agree. That is as far as the conversation would go.”

Marcelo Gameiro, a Church member living in Shanghai, said that he does not talk about the church “because it is against the law.”

“But I don’t hide (that) I am a member of the church,” he added. “When I was in Huzhou, I used to go to the Hangzhou branch, it took me three hours to get there, and people started to notice I was going somewhere every Sunday dressed in a tie, so I did tell them where I was going with no problem, I just did not preach the gospel to anyone.”

Sarah said she would “occasionally see Christian religious groups that would come in and rather openly flout the rules of China.” American students would get scholarships in China and then try and convert their classmates.

“Several times I talked to them about it, I asked is this the right thing to do, are you making a good example,” she said. “I heard from Chinese people who got rather angry because people would come from other countries and give away Bibles and start conversations about religion, and they would say we are not allowed to talk about this in China.”

Playing the long game

John Wakefield, a now ex-Mormon who came to Hong Kong as a missionary in the 1980s and still lives in the city, said a big part of the Mormon religion is “we’re going to convert the whole world” and that it’s the fastest growing church in the world. “For them, numbers are really important,” he said.

Another former Mormon, Bryce Bushman, who lived in China for almost four years, where he worked as an urban planner and designer, said that: “Mormon doctrine states that the LDS Church will eventually cover the whole Earth.”

“It’s considered a prophecy, something that is definitely going to happen at some point in the future,” he said. “This gives both the church organization and the members of the church a kind of patient confidence that eventually every nation on earth will allow Mormon missionaries to proselyte and establish church congregations.”

Mormon doctrine also permits “baptisms for the dead,” allowing for the potential salvation of those already deceased, who can then “choose to accept or reject what has been done in their behalf.” This alleviates somewhat the need to spread the word of Jesus to people before they die, has been stated as a motivation for some evangelical missionaries to take great risks in the name of saving souls.

This patience allows the Church to play the long game in China, confident that one day it will be able to bring its message to the country’s vast population.

Josh Steimle, a practicing Mormon who lived in the Chinese city of Shenzhen for two years, said it “would have been so easy to pass along the URL to a Church website to someone who was curious, or give them a Book of Mormon, or a pamphlet about the Church.”

“It was very difficult because we’re a Church that believes in sharing what we believe, and we’re always being encouraged to be good missionaries, and then to move to China and be told to not say a word about what we believe seems to be contrary to everything we’ve been taught,” he added. “But it’s all about the long term vs. the short term. If we shared our beliefs in violation of Chinese law, a few people might join our Church and then the Church would be shut down and kicked out of the country.”

Temple doctrine

On paper, a temple should not be too much for the Chinese authorities to stomach.

In its description of the proposed temple in Shanghai, the Church is clear that this does not represent a climactic shift, nor will the Chinese temple be anything like the grand white stone buildings that dot many American cities.

“It would be modest in appearance. It would fit and be consistent with local custom and environment as a place of peace, tranquility, and dignity,” the Church said of the proposed temple, which it said is intended to serve as a replacement for the Hong Kong building, which is currently closed for “long-planned maintenance and renovation.”

It said that entry will be limited to Chinese members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — those who have converted overseas and returned to China — adding that this “does not represent a change in the legal status” or the ability of missionaries to operate in China.

Unlike a regular church, Mormon temples are not open to non-members, and even those within the Church must be considered in good standing and receive a “recommend” from a Church official in order to enter.

While the Church appears to be downplaying the significance of a potential temple, all current and former members interviewed by CNN agreed that it would be a major achievement.

Steimle said that it was “difficult to express how big of a deal this is for me, personally, other members of the Church who have ties to China, and really to the entire Church membership worldwide. It’s going to be a very small temple, but it’s a huge thing for the Church.”

Temples are where the most important and sacred Mormon ceremonies are carried out, including baptisms and “celestial marriages.”

If established, the temple would not be the first active place of worship in Shanghai for an unofficial religion. In recent years, limited services have been held at the Ohel Rachel Synagogue, a historic building that predates the establishment of the Communist state. Most Jews in China however continue to practice behind closed doors, in arrangements similar to Mormon meeting houses.

Whether Mormons in China will be able to get nearer to that presence remains to be seen. In a statement issued two days after the Church’s announcement, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Ethnic and Religious Affairs said that “according to the relevant laws and regulations of China, foreigners are not allowed to set up religious organizations or venues for religious activities in China.”

The bureau denied any knowledge of plans for a temple in Shanghai, saying they were the “wishful thinking of the Mormon Church in the United States.”

When CNN asked the Church about the current status of the project, a spokesman would only provide a link to the Church’s website detailing plans for the temple and how it would operate. Church representatives would neither confirm nor deny the veracity of the original statement announcing the temple. However, since reporting on this story began, reference to the Shanghai temple has been removed from the Church’s website, though it is still available on an archived version of the page.

Vendassi, the expert on religion in China, said that despite this apparent denial by the authorities, a temple may still end up opening at some point in the near future.

“If an LDS temple has been announced in Shanghai, I think it means they probably had a ‘go’ from Chinese officials to do so,” Vendassi said. “Even if the government says it is a unilateral statement — they actually have no interest in making a bilateral statement, because that would send a message of religious openness.”

Nee, the Amnesty researcher, said that while there was no reason on paper for the Chinese authorities to object to a temple, he doubted whether officials “would be willing to understand the nuances of religions and their theologies” in order to permit such an institution.

As a uniquely American religion, Mormonism’s hopes in China may also be hurt by worsening relations between Washington and Beijing. In the same month the Shanghai temple was announced, Senator Mitt Romney said the coronavirus pandemic had exposed China’s “grand strategy for economic, military and geopolitical domination.”

Romney is by no means alone in criticizing Beijing, but as the country’s highest-ranking elected Mormon, his words may carry more weight with China’s leaders when they are considering the Church’s position there.

China change

If the Mormon Church does have to exercise more patience before they open a temple in mainland China, what are a few more years or decades after a century and a half?

Responding to a question of when China would be open to missionaries in 1991,Elder Dallin Oaks — a senior Church leader — said that “I state my belief that China is already ‘open’ — it is we who are closed … We must understand their way of thinking … observe their laws, and follow their example of patience.”

Quoting Mormon scripture, Oaks added that God “will bring His purposes to pass in that great nation ‘in his own time, and in his own way, and according to his own will’.”

Mormons who lived in China spoke of the country with great fondness, despite the restrictions placed on how they worshipped there. Both Jason and Sarah keep in contact with Chinese friends over WeChat, and hope to visit again in future.

Sarah saw many parallels between China and the Mormon people, pointing in particular to the importance of venerating ancestors in Chinese culture.

“My ancestors are special to me,” she said. “Many of them joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while our first leader, Joseph Smith, was a prophet. Like the people of China who went on the (Long March), my people also traveled across a continent in search of their dream.”

Two of Jason’s four children were born while the family was living in Shanghai, and the kids went to local Chinese schools. Jason and his wife made a concerted effort to integrate into Chinese life more than many other expats around them, doing “many things that few foreigners experience in China.”

“We didn’t speak any Chinese when we came but we did when we left,” he said. This brought him closer both to locals and to other members of the foreign Mormon community who weren’t as comfortable operating in China.

“I can’t possibly begin to count the number of people we had over for dinners, the people we took shopping because everything the supermarket was unfamiliar, how many people we helped to simply get a Chinese phone number and register for WeChat, both for members of our Church and those who were not.”

Both were optimistic about the future of the Church in China, but emphasized the need for patience, a view shared by Steimle.

“Great progress usually doesn’t happen in a straight line,” he said. “Although there have been crackdowns on religion in China, perhaps the obedience of our members and the trust and friendship our Church leadership has built up over the years by working openly with the Chinese government will help open doors.”

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Rose Garden at the White House June 05, 2020 in Washington, DC.

Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

Surprise U.S. job gains left the White House narrowing its goals for more coronavirus relief Friday, as Democrats insisted Congress needs to take sweeping steps to sustain the pandemic recovery.

A month after the economy shed more than 20 million jobs, it added 2.5 million in May, the Labor Department said Friday. The leisure and hospitality industries drove the better-than-expected report, as restaurants and bars rehired workers while states started to reopen their economies.

The data further complicate an already fraught debate in Washington over whether lawmakers need to pass another economic rescue package — and what it should include. While Republicans pointed to a handful of specific policy goals, Democrats again stressed the need for a broader approach to mitigate the ongoing health and economic crises.

Trump, while claiming the U.S. is “largely through” the pandemic that has killed more than 108,000 Americans, cast the jobs report as “a very big day for our country.” He outlined several policies he wants to pass: a payroll tax cut, another round of stimulus checks for Americans and potential tax incentives to encourage restaurant and entertainment spending.

Before the president spoke, Vice President Mike Pence told CNBC that “we’re open to helping states with coronavirus-related costs.” Democrats want far more relief for state and local governments, which have lost revenue and seen expenses rise during the pandemic. The Labor Department said the U.S. lost 585,000 government jobs in May, primarily driven by school closures.

Democrats, who have opposed the White House’s payroll tax cut push, attributed the jobs gains in large part to the more than $2.5 trillion in relief Congress has passed to respond to the coronavirus. In a statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged the Senate to approve the nearly $3 trillion rescue package her chamber passed last month — which includes state and local aid, enhanced federal unemployment benefits and direct payments to individuals, among numerous other provisions.

“The president must join us to support real action to protect lives and livelihoods, rather than hide behind these jobs numbers and pretend that the job is done,” the California Democrat said.

The overall unemployment rate dropped to 13.3%, still higher than at any point after the 2008 financial crisis.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, meanwhile, did not close the door on future relief but emphasized that Republicans would tailor legislation to reopening the economy. In a statement Friday, he said “future efforts must be laser-focused on helping schools reopen safely in the fall, helping American workers continue to get back on the job, and helping employers reopen and grow.”

The senator has repeatedly said he will not pass another stimulus bill unless it includes liability protections for doctors and businesses as the economy reopens. Democrats oppose a broad shield from lawsuits.

The House Democratic bill would extend an enhanced federal unemployment benefit of $600 per week through January. It is set to expire after July, leaving displaced workers who still cannot find a job facing a steep drop off in income.

McConnell has said he does not want to continue the $600 per week benefit. Last week, he said Congress would “help those who are still unemployed.”

The House will not return to Washington until the end of the month unless the Senate moves before then to pass coronavirus relief.

There are only five state-sanctioned religious associations in China, all under the tight control of the Communist Party. Others walk a delicate legal tightrope, with the threat of a crackdown always hanging over their heads. While the government tolerates foreigners practicing their religion and attending services together, it takes a hard line against anything approaching proselytising or missionary work, a prohibition the Mormon Church takes seriously.

“We have to ask to see if they have a foreign passport to attend,” said Jason, a lifelong member of the Church who worked in Shanghai for almost a decade until relocating back to the United State in 2018. “I have frequently been this person watching the doors and on many occasions I have sadly had to turn away Chinese citizens who wished to worship with us.”

And that is during the good times. In recent years, the Chinese government has increased its regulation of religious worship, launched crackdowns against underground churches and instituted new restrictions on those faiths which operate in the grey area of only catering to foreigners.

So the Church’s announcement on April 5, that it plans to open a temple in Shanghai, the first ever in mainland China, was seen by some as a bold decision.

The Church claims it won’t change anything, but the idea that a US church with expansion in its DNA could open an official temple in China is likely to be controversial — and may not be allowed by Beijing. Already, authorities in Shanghai have suggested that the announcement was made without their prior approval, even as experts said the Church would likely never have revealed the plans without a clear go ahead.

“I couldn’t have imagined that we would ever have a temple in Shanghai at this time,” he said. “Immediately, my WeChat started lighting up as we were all expressing joy and excitement with our China friends.”

Jason is a pseudonym. Like several other current members of the Church interviewed for this story, he requested anonymity to speak about its functioning in China without the permission of Church leadership.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints declined multiple requests for an interview for this story, referring CNN to a website about its operations in China and President Russell Nelson’s statement on April 5.

In the beginning

Founded in upstate New York by Joseph Smith in 1830, it took the Mormon Church some 117 years to grow from six initial members to its first million. Today, it claims more than 16.5 million members globally, with most outside the US.

While the true size of the church is debated (some say they include members who are no longer active) one thing is clear: the massive growth of the Church has been achieved through the work of thousands of missionaries.

Smith said he received a revelation in February 1831, in which God told his followers to “go forth in my name, every one of you” and “build up my church in every region.”

That is how the Church arrived in China over a century and a half ago.

Its start in the country, however, was less than auspicious. In 1853, its then-leader Brigham Young dispatched three missionaries to British-controlled Hong Kong, then a common staging ground for those seeking to spread the gospel in China.

When they arrived, however, they realized that China was in the midst of a bloody civil war, making travel outside of Hong Kong exceptionally dangerous. Their reception in the city was not much better, as the English-language press ran lurid articles about the Mormon faith and accused the faith of blasphemy. Their funds running out, they struggled even to find a Chinese teacher.

“Our staying here to learn the Chinese language without one friend or one possible recourse to us appears totally impractable (sic),” the missionaries wrote in a letter to church leaders as, less than two months after they had arrived in Asia, they boarded a ship bound for California, historian Stephen Prince recounts in his biography of one of the missionaries, Hosea Stout.

It was not until 1949 that the Church established a permanent presence in Hong Kong, with the intention again of using the city to get a foothold into China.

“Nearly one billion of our Father’s children live in China,” then-President Spencer Kimball said in 1978. “If we could only make a small beginning in every nation, soon the converts among each kindred and tongue could step forth as lights to their own people.”

Beginning in 1980, Church leadership began reaching out to the Chinese authorities to try to get permission to operate in the country, and in 1986, small church branches — meeting houses — were organized in Beijing and Xi’an, though only those holding foreign passports were permitted to attend. According to the Church, today there are around 10 meeting houses across mainland China. By comparison, there are around the same number in Hong Kong alone, and more than 50 meeting houses in self-governed Taiwan, where the Church claims around 61,000 members.

Despite this apparent lack of progress, Church leaders say they have built a strong relationship with the Chinese authorities, and in 2010 they announced moves to “regularize” their activities in the country.

“The Church deeply appreciates the courtesy of the Chinese leadership in opening up a way to better define how the Church and its members can proceed with daily activities, all in harmony with Chinese law,” spokesman Michael Otterson said at the time. “They have become thoroughly familiar with us through numerous contacts, and they have seen how we and our members operate in China. They know that we are people of our word when it comes to respecting Chinese law and cultural expectations.”

Currently, two types of Mormon worship are permitted in China: services for foreign nationals, and services for Chinese nationals who converted while overseas. The two are kept separate, and the Church is careful to avoid any sign of seeking to expand its Chinese membership within the country. Unlike with other countries in which it operates, however, the church does not provide membership figures for China.

Building trust

The Chinese Communist Party has always had an uneasy relationship with religion. The state is officially atheist, and the tens of millions of Party members are barred from holding religious beliefs.

Despite a constitutional commitment to religious freedom, only a handful of faiths are permitted to operate, each under umbrella organizations with strong links to the Communist Party.

Two are considered domestic faiths — Buddhism and Taoism — while the others are foreign religions, with varying historical pedigrees in the country, Islam, Protestantism and Catholicism, though Chinese Catholic organizations operate separately to Rome.

Other religions fall into a grey area: the State Council says it is “open” to foreign organizations — but only if they respect China’s sovereignty and principle of religious self-administration.

In practice, this means religious bodies’ first loyalty must be to the Communist Party, not a foreign Church leadership. This point has caused a long-standing rift with the Vatican since the establishment of the People’s Republic, and Chinese Catholics operate separately to the global church, though some progress has been made towards rapprochement in recent years.

Despite this, religious practice is on the rise. But alongside this growth in belief has come increased suspicion of “foreign” religions, particularly Islam and Christianity (though both have long-histories in China). Muslims in the far-western region of Xinjiang have had their religious practices strictly curtailed, while underground Christian churches, once broadly tolerated, have been cracked down upon.

Indeed, around the time Nelson was making the announcement of the new temple, International Christian Concern, a US-based advocacy group, said that believers holding Easter services online were raided by the authorities. Local police could not be reached for comment, the Early Rain Covenant Church which organized the service is considered an “underground,” or unlicensed, operation and has previously been ordered to cease activities, according to Human Rights Watch.

“The Chinese government is very suspicious of religion as a vehicle for potential political opposition,” said William Nee, a Hong Kong-based researcher for Amnesty International.

Pierre Vendassi, an expert on Christianity in China, said that the government “is mainly trying to take back the control over religious activities, and uses full force to do so, after a period of time when people could almost freely opt for unregistered, unmonitored religious activities, without facing any consequences, most of the time.”

“Now the message is clear: either accept state control, monitoring and restrictions, or face state hostility,” he said. “For the Christian activities, the purpose is to get house churches and Catholic underground church back under control.”

As far as non-official faiths go, the Mormon Church is perhaps the gold standard for such a group in China. Current and former members, as well as outside observers, agreed that the Church is scrupulous about following Chinese law and avoiding anything that could be seen as proselytization.

Nee contrasted this with “other forms of Protestant Christianity or evangelical traditions coming out of the US, who have a much more aggressive or underground strategy for spreading the faith.”

Sarah, a Mormon who worked as a university professor for several years in China, said she “did not tell people what church I belonged to or even if I belonged to a church.”

“Some friends would ask me if I was Christian. I would say yes (but) we do not talk about it in China,” she said. “They would nod and agree. That is as far as the conversation would go.”

Marcelo Gameiro, a Church member living in Shanghai, said that he does not talk about the church “because it is against the law.”

“But I don’t hide (that) I am a member of the church,” he added. “When I was in Huzhou, I used to go to the Hangzhou branch, it took me three hours to get there, and people started to notice I was going somewhere every Sunday dressed in a tie, so I did tell them where I was going with no problem, I just did not preach the gospel to anyone.”

Sarah said she would “occasionally see Christian religious groups that would come in and rather openly flout the rules of China.” American students would get scholarships in China and then try and convert their classmates.

“Several times I talked to them about it, I asked is this the right thing to do, are you making a good example,” she said. “I heard from Chinese people who got rather angry because people would come from other countries and give away Bibles and start conversations about religion, and they would say we are not allowed to talk about this in China.”

Playing the long game

John Wakefield, a now ex-Mormon who came to Hong Kong as a missionary in the 1980s and still lives in the city, said a big part of the Mormon religion is “we’re going to convert the whole world” and that it’s the fastest growing church in the world. “For them, numbers are really important,” he said.

Another former Mormon, Bryce Bushman, who lived in China for almost four years, where he worked as an urban planner and designer, said that: “Mormon doctrine states that the LDS Church will eventually cover the whole Earth.”

“It’s considered a prophecy, something that is definitely going to happen at some point in the future,” he said. “This gives both the church organization and the members of the church a kind of patient confidence that eventually every nation on earth will allow Mormon missionaries to proselyte and establish church congregations.”

Mormon doctrine also permits “baptisms for the dead,” allowing for the potential salvation of those already deceased, who can then “choose to accept or reject what has been done in their behalf.” This alleviates somewhat the need to spread the word of Jesus to people before they die, has been stated as a motivation for some evangelical missionaries to take great risks in the name of saving souls.

This patience allows the Church to play the long game in China, confident that one day it will be able to bring its message to the country’s vast population.

Josh Steimle, a practicing Mormon who lived in the Chinese city of Shenzhen for two years, said it “would have been so easy to pass along the URL to a Church website to someone who was curious, or give them a Book of Mormon, or a pamphlet about the Church.”

“It was very difficult because we’re a Church that believes in sharing what we believe, and we’re always being encouraged to be good missionaries, and then to move to China and be told to not say a word about what we believe seems to be contrary to everything we’ve been taught,” he added. “But it’s all about the long term vs. the short term. If we shared our beliefs in violation of Chinese law, a few people might join our Church and then the Church would be shut down and kicked out of the country.”

Temple doctrine

On paper, a temple should not be too much for the Chinese authorities to stomach.

In its description of the proposed temple in Shanghai, the Church is clear that this does not represent a climactic shift, nor will the Chinese temple be anything like the grand white stone buildings that dot many American cities.

“It would be modest in appearance. It would fit and be consistent with local custom and environment as a place of peace, tranquility, and dignity,” the Church said of the proposed temple, which it said is intended to serve as a replacement for the Hong Kong building, which is currently closed for “long-planned maintenance and renovation.”

It said that entry will be limited to Chinese members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — those who have converted overseas and returned to China — adding that this “does not represent a change in the legal status” or the ability of missionaries to operate in China.

Unlike a regular church, Mormon temples are not open to non-members, and even those within the Church must be considered in good standing and receive a “recommend” from a Church official in order to enter.

While the Church appears to be downplaying the significance of a potential temple, all current and former members interviewed by CNN agreed that it would be a major achievement.

Steimle said that it was “difficult to express how big of a deal this is for me, personally, other members of the Church who have ties to China, and really to the entire Church membership worldwide. It’s going to be a very small temple, but it’s a huge thing for the Church.”

Temples are where the most important and sacred Mormon ceremonies are carried out, including baptisms and “celestial marriages.”

If established, the temple would not be the first active place of worship in Shanghai for an unofficial religion. In recent years, limited services have been held at the Ohel Rachel Synagogue, a historic building that predates the establishment of the Communist state. Most Jews in China however continue to practice behind closed doors, in arrangements similar to Mormon meeting houses.

Whether Mormons in China will be able to get nearer to that presence remains to be seen. In a statement issued two days after the Church’s announcement, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Ethnic and Religious Affairs said that “according to the relevant laws and regulations of China, foreigners are not allowed to set up religious organizations or venues for religious activities in China.”

The bureau denied any knowledge of plans for a temple in Shanghai, saying they were the “wishful thinking of the Mormon Church in the United States.”

When CNN asked the Church about the current status of the project, a spokesman would only provide a link to the Church’s website detailing plans for the temple and how it would operate. Church representatives would neither confirm nor deny the veracity of the original statement announcing the temple. However, since reporting on this story began, reference to the Shanghai temple has been removed from the Church’s website, though it is still available on an archived version of the page.

Vendassi, the expert on religion in China, said that despite this apparent denial by the authorities, a temple may still end up opening at some point in the near future.

“If an LDS temple has been announced in Shanghai, I think it means they probably had a ‘go’ from Chinese officials to do so,” Vendassi said. “Even if the government says it is a unilateral statement — they actually have no interest in making a bilateral statement, because that would send a message of religious openness.”

Nee, the Amnesty researcher, said that while there was no reason on paper for the Chinese authorities to object to a temple, he doubted whether officials “would be willing to understand the nuances of religions and their theologies” in order to permit such an institution.

As a uniquely American religion, Mormonism’s hopes in China may also be hurt by worsening relations between Washington and Beijing. In the same month the Shanghai temple was announced, Senator Mitt Romney said the coronavirus pandemic had exposed China’s “grand strategy for economic, military and geopolitical domination.”

Romney is by no means alone in criticizing Beijing, but as the country’s highest-ranking elected Mormon, his words may carry more weight with China’s leaders when they are considering the Church’s position there.

China change

If the Mormon Church does have to exercise more patience before they open a temple in mainland China, what are a few more years or decades after a century and a half?

Responding to a question of when China would be open to missionaries in 1991,Elder Dallin Oaks — a senior Church leader — said that “I state my belief that China is already ‘open’ — it is we who are closed … We must understand their way of thinking … observe their laws, and follow their example of patience.”

Quoting Mormon scripture, Oaks added that God “will bring His purposes to pass in that great nation ‘in his own time, and in his own way, and according to his own will’.”

Mormons who lived in China spoke of the country with great fondness, despite the restrictions placed on how they worshipped there. Both Jason and Sarah keep in contact with Chinese friends over WeChat, and hope to visit again in future.

Sarah saw many parallels between China and the Mormon people, pointing in particular to the importance of venerating ancestors in Chinese culture.

“My ancestors are special to me,” she said. “Many of them joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while our first leader, Joseph Smith, was a prophet. Like the people of China who went on the (Long March), my people also traveled across a continent in search of their dream.”

Two of Jason’s four children were born while the family was living in Shanghai, and the kids went to local Chinese schools. Jason and his wife made a concerted effort to integrate into Chinese life more than many other expats around them, doing “many things that few foreigners experience in China.”

“We didn’t speak any Chinese when we came but we did when we left,” he said. This brought him closer both to locals and to other members of the foreign Mormon community who weren’t as comfortable operating in China.

“I can’t possibly begin to count the number of people we had over for dinners, the people we took shopping because everything the supermarket was unfamiliar, how many people we helped to simply get a Chinese phone number and register for WeChat, both for members of our Church and those who were not.”

Both were optimistic about the future of the Church in China, but emphasized the need for patience, a view shared by Steimle.

“Great progress usually doesn’t happen in a straight line,” he said. “Although there have been crackdowns on religion in China, perhaps the obedience of our members and the trust and friendship our Church leadership has built up over the years by working openly with the Chinese government will help open doors.”

]]>world news What the coronavirus pandemic looks like when you don’t have the internethttps://newsnetdaily.com/world-news-what-the-coronavirus-pandemic-looks-like-when-you-dont-have-the-internet-2/
Sun, 07 Jun 2020 07:50:06 +0000https://newsnetdaily.com/world-news-what-the-coronavirus-pandemic-looks-like-when-you-dont-have-the-internet-2/news net daily : They told her a deadly virus “like a whooping cough” was gripping the country and had even hit the nearby city of Maicao. But she was skeptical it was so close to home. “I don’t know if this is true,” said 38-year-old Montiel, who is part of the country’s largest indigenous […]]]>

news net daily :

They told her a deadly virus “like a whooping cough” was gripping the country and had even hit the nearby city of Maicao. But she was skeptical it was so close to home. “I don’t know if this is true,” said 38-year-old Montiel, who is part of the country’s largest indigenous group, the Wayuu.

When the Colombian government issued a nationwide lockdown in late April, she and her husband were advised to stay at home with their three children, keep their distance from other people, wash their hands and wear masks to avoid the virus, which has killed more than 365,000 people around the world.

But for the Montiels, the stay-at-home order is its own sort of death sentence.

Before the lockdown, Angela would occasionally top up a SIM card in order to use WhatsApp, but hasn’t been able to recharge it since the lockdown. With no internet connection, there is no way to “work remotely.” Angela knits traditional Wayuu mochila bags but she can’t sell them in the street under the current restrictions.

For now, her family has been surviving off emergency cash payments from the non-government organization Mercy Corps. It’s impossible for her children to continue their education from home without access to school materials online. As for updates, they wait for phone calls from friends or family, who might bring news. Otherwise, they’re in the dark.

“Seeing as we don’t have TV, internet or anything, we don’t know if it’s still going on or if it will keep going, so obviously we can’t go out or move around,” Montiel said. “We’re in despair.”

According to UN estimates, nearly half the global population — 46% — still aren’t connected to the internet. For those people, lockdown means missing out on immediate access to vital public health information, remote work opportunities, online learning, telemedicine appointments, digital grocery deliveries, live-streamed religious services — weddings, and even funerals — as well as the countless other ways we are increasingly living our lives online.

Governments around the world have committed to providing universal access by 2020, but the digital divide still runs deep and is widening inequalities offline as well.

People in poorer regions are less likely to be connected, as are women, elderly people and those living in remote or rural areas. And in many cases, connectivity can be tenuous — closures of offices, schools or public spaces, like libraries and cafes, have cut access off for many.

“We’ve always said that there are about 3.5 billion people who are not connected, but we know it’s more now, because quite a number of the people who used to be connected at their workplaces and other public spaces no longer have that access,” said Eleanor Sarpong, the deputy director at the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI).

“Covid-19 has shown that there’s such a huge divide, and it’s actually come as a shock to some governments. When they asked their employees to go work from home … a lot of them couldn’t.”

Sarpong is hopeful the crisis will break through long-existing barriers to internet access — from a lack of political will to regulatory hurdles and data affordability — to get more of the world connected.

A4AI, an initiative of the World Wide Web Foundation, founded by Tim Berners-Lee, recently shared a set of policy recommendations, urging governments, companies and civil society to take urgent actions to bring as many people online as possible during the pandemic. Among their immediate recommendations are: removing consumer taxes on internet services; cutting out data charges for public websites; providing affordable data packages; expanding broadband allowances; and rolling out free public wifi infrastructure. Some are already taking these steps.

“Governments need to look at internet access, not as a luxury, but to see it as an enabler that can transform their economies … I think it’s a wake-up call for them,” Sarpong said.

A digital gender gap

Digital technologies have rapidly revolutionized life as we know it. But not everyone is benefiting equally, and many are getting left behind because of a lack of infrastructure, literacy and training.

Across the world’s least-developed countries, just 19% of people are online. Men are 21% more likely than women to be connected — and that gender gap is only widening.

In India, an aggressive approach towards digitization has moved most government benefits online — from rations to pensions. Even before the pandemic, the country’s poorest were dependent on digital, despite half of the population being offline.

The pandemic has only magnified the irony of that situation.

When the crisis hit and India’s 1.3 billion people were placed under lockdown, the nation’s informal economy ground to a screeching halt. So when the government announced it would send direct cash transfers to vulnerable women, widows, senior citizens and disabled people for three months starting April 1, it was welcome news. But, stuck at home without smartphones, many were unable to access the 500 to 1,000 rupees ($6 to $13) in aid.

Lal Bai, a 65-year-old widow living in a remote village in Rajasthan, couldn’t trek the five miles into the nearest town to withdraw the government cash, and had no means of accessing the government funds online, so she quickly found herself without any food left at home.

Distraught, Bai ended up on the doorstep of Ombati Prajapati, who runs a digital services shop in her village. “She was the only one who would help me.”

Prajapati is among 10,000 “soochnapreneurs,” or digital entrepreneurs, who have been trained and supported by Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), a New Delhi-based NGO, in rural parts of the country. Amid the lockdown, they’re helping provide essential digital services, including remote banking that allows people like Bai to withdraw cash using a mobile, biometric ATM. And they’re even helping to fight misinformation.

“It is only because of the internet that I am able to see what is happening and tell others that they should regularly wash their hands with soap, use sanitizer, wear masks,” said Prajapati, 27. “I would not have been able to help any of these people [if I had not learned how to use the internet]. I would not have been able to even help myself.”

Osama Manzar, a social entrepreneur and DEF’s founder, says that their work training women like Prajapati has shown how important it is to have digital infrastructure available to the last mile — especially during a disaster.

“Connectivity and access to the internet must be part of basic human rights. It must be considered, at the time of pandemic and disaster, just as you provide access to food or water, there must be a way to provide access to data,” Manzar said.

A problem for rich countries, too

The digital divide has long been thought of as a development issue. But the pandemic has highlighted that wealthy countries are also afflicted by digital deprivation.

More than four in 10 low-income households in America don’t have access to broadband services, according to research by Pew. And in the United Kingdom, 1.9 million households have no access to the internet, while tens of millions more are reliant on pay-as-you-go services to get online.

“Sometimes people talk about Covid-19 as being a great leveler. But actually, the way that people are experiencing the lockdown is not at all equal,” said Helen Milner, the chief executive of the Good Things Foundation, a UK charity working with the government to get more people online.

“Digital exclusion is, for a lot of people, just an extension of social exclusion that they’re facing, and poverty is definitely part of that.”

The British government recently launched a number of initiatives to help try and tackle digital exclusion. Among the schemes is a new campaign, DevicesDotNow, which asks businesses to donate devices, sims and mobile hotspots. Good Things Foundation is helping deliver the devices to those in need, and assisting with training. So far, they’ve given out nearly 2,000 tablets

Among the recipients was Annette Addison, who lives alone in a flat in Birmingham, central England and uses a wheelchair to get around. Before the lockdown, she would go to her local community center to access the internet and get assistance with her disability payments. But without a smartphone, she says she has felt isolated and in the dark about the status of her benefits.

“I wasn’t coping at all. I was very lonely and depressed when lockdown first started, but since I’ve had the tablet … when I’m feeling lonely, I can talk to my grandchildren or my daughter. I’ve got contact with them constantly, because they’re always online.”

On May 1, Addison turned 60. She celebrated with her grandchildren over a video chat on her new iPad — the same iPad she now uses to check her benefits portal. And she’s recently signed up for a dating site too. “I feel like a teenager,” she said.

But, as governments try to roll out digital services to the neediest, the question remains: Who gets a device and who doesn’t?

Hafsha Shaikh, founder of SmartLyte, the digital skills center that distributed the device to Addison, said that is a question that haunts her.

“That device isn’t just about immediate support during Covid, but it’s about opening up the gateway, for parents and for families, to aspirations and opportunities,” Shaikh said. There are currently 1,500 others on the waiting list.